La Firenze del Sud...

Buongiorno tutti!!!

 

SAM!!! YOU ARE GOING TO NEW YORK!!! That is sooooooo awesome! I am so excited for you! You are going to love the mission! It really is the best two years ever! It is awesome! Congratulations for that my brother! Keep working hard to prepare to go! You are the best!

 

Well, also I have recieved a call to leave Cagliari... I am being transfered to a city called Lecce down south near Bari and Taranto! I am really excited! It has been nicknamed the Florence of the South so, that is pretty stinking awesome! It is supposedly one of the most beautiful cities in the south of italy and Anziano Faggioli talked a lot about how cool it was when he was down near that area. I am really excited to go and to give it my all down south! I have heard the food is incredible also haha. Always a plus. My new companion will be Anziano Petersen and I have only heard really good things! He is a crazy hard worker and a fantastic missionary, so I can't ask for anything more than that. He is going to be awesome! I am so excited all-round for this next transfer! It is going to be great and we are going to tear it up in Lecce! News for here, Anziano Garcia will be companions with Anziano Stewart and Anziano Durham is getting a new companion. Kind of a funny switch up, but it has been awesome to be in the same house as two of my Oly buddies.

 

This week has been great! We have seen a lot of really great things and the spirit has been really strong! We got a new investigator from English Course named C* and he is really nice. He has some really good questions about the book of Mormon and the church! I will get to teach him one more lesson before I leave, so that will be cool! Also, we have had an awesome time talking with people on the buses and on the street and he have had some really good discussions with people! It is so great! The last two weeks, since the conference, the spirit has been soo strong in this work and it is helping so much. We are just feeling good about everything! I am so grateful for the time that I have spent here in Cagliari! It has been a beautiful time and I have learned so much. I have loved being companions with Anziano Garcia and he has helped teached me some important lessons. Overall, 7 months here have been awesome and I have enjoyed it a lot. The people are awesome and I have made friendships that will last for a lifetime! It is fantastic!

 

This next week I will be saying a lot of goodbyes and it will be sad, but it will be good to move on and go to another place to meet new people! It will be great! I am so excited for the future, really, it is going to be so cool!

 

Well, That is all I can think to write this week, transfers will be fun. I might be taking a boat to Rome again haha! We will see! Love you all!

The pictures are of me and Anziano Faggioli at the conference, Me and the Gordillo family, and then a really nice sunset that I liked... Enjoy!

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

ROMA, la città eterna

BUONGIORNO TUTTI!!!

Well it has been a stinking busy week! So much has happened! It really has been a crazy packed week of tons of stuff! It has been awesome! First off, the boat ride was soooooooo coooool! I took a big boat to Rome. Right in that phrase I fulfilled 2 of my childhood dreams haha. It was awesome! We slept on the boat and then in the morning of Wednesday we awoke and went into the city for the conference. For the first time on my mission I saw the River haha. That was pretty cool to see. I saw it from a train, so it wasn't the greatest view but it was still cool! The conference was absolutely amazing!!! Elder Kearon of the seventy came and spake to us and it was soooooo powerful the entire time. The spirit was so strong and he has the coolest English accent haha. It reminded me of his talk about the scorpion in the sand. He spoke about a ton of things but primarily the thing that struck me was about finding. He talked about how we should stop literally everyone in our path and how this was a thing that the mission needed to work on. He talked about using our faith in the finding and being bold and confident in all that we do. It was so cool! I learned so much and I left that conference feeling so renewed and ready to take it on. I have been so happy this week. It has just been great! At the conference I saw Anziano Faggioli and I took a picture with him! He is doing great and it was so awesome to see him after nearly 7 months. The boat ride back from Rome was awesome and I enjoyed being on a big boat haha. It is soooo coool!

So when we got back into Cagliari, Anziano Durham and I did a split because Anziano Stewart was down in Catania for a zone leader conference and Anziano Garcia had to do things for his permissions to stay in Italy because he isn't an Italian citizen yet. So, Anziano Durham and I went to a concert in the church the night that we got back and it was this awesome guy who played the accordian. He was literally a master at that instrument and he got really into playing. It was soooo coool and really funny also. He is a boss. He was a really nice guy. I got his autograph and a picture with him. His name is Marco Lo Russo. Check him out on itunes. He is pretty cool and he is from Rome. Unfortunately, that night Anziano Durham started feeling sick... So all Friday we were stuck in the house because he got sick from something... That was kind of rough having to be inside right after we had this awesome conference about talking with everyone and going out and doing stuff, but I did get a ton of reading done in the Book of Mormon in Italian. Right now I am trying to read through it all! It will help the language so much! Well, when we went to go pick up Anziano Garcia and Anziano Stewart I got to drive the car to the airport and back. It made me miss my old car haha... On Sunday night the other anziani had the baptism of an old man named E*. It was probably one of the coolest baptisms I have ever seen because he had to be slowly let back into the water because he was so old. It was really sweet and the spirit was really strong. He has been an investigator for something like 10 years I think haha, pretty cool that he decided to finally get into the water.

This week we found a guy named M* from the area book and we visited him and he was very nice! Hopefully we will be able to go back this week, but recently when we have called he has been really "busy"... We will see what happens there. The nice lady who is friends with the G* family, A*, became our investigator again instead of being the sisters... We had a lesson with her on Sunday about the plan of salvation when we were teaching the Gordillo family and she had tons of good questions and we will see her again this next sunday. It was pretty awesome and we are both excited about that. Also, Sunday night at our fireside in church we watched this cool mormon message from Elder Bednar and at the end I really loved his testimony about the Savior. It was powerful and moving. I love the apostles and leaders and everything about this Church. It is awesome!

Well, Sam... You are getting your call probably this week... That will be so awesome! You are going to love it my brother! The mission teaches you things you didn't know you needed to learn. It is awesome! Good luck and get super excited!

This next Saturday we get transfer calls. Man this transfer has flown by... I will most likely be out this transfer but it has been awesome. Recently, I have felt the call of Rome to my heart haha. We will see if I end up going to stay for more than 24 hours in the eternal city. It would be cool, we will see!!!

Love you all!

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Giochiamo un pò di basket...

Buongiorno Tutti!!!

This week has been good! We met our goals how many less actives we wanted to visit, so that is awesome! Still working on the member presents lessons and some new investigators, but overall it has been good. Our lessons that we had this week with some less actives were very direct and to the point and it was good because we have learned some valuable information in helping some people come back to Christ. In one of our lessons when we invited a less active man to read the Book of Mormon again he outright said no to us. From there we were able to better find out his situation and his problems with coming to Church. We bore testimony about the power of the Book of Mormon and also the Church in our lives. I hope that his heart may be changed by the spirit. One of the investigators we got a few weeks ago was given to the Sisters. We feel that she would be better taught by women. It makes it harder on our work but it will be awesome. We will find someone else to teach and invite to come unto Christ. The G* family is doing really well and for the first time ever, I had a lesson in Italian with them, because Anziano Garcia did a scambio with Anziano Stewart. I was doing a scambio with Anziano Durham. I included some pictures of us out on a lonely dirt road outside of Cagliari. It was pretty cool. We went and taught Fratello G* how to teach the Restoration, so hopefully he will be able to teach it to some of his friends. We also went and visited Fratello U* this week, he is doing well and we left a nice little spiritual thought about setting goals with him. Hopefully we can set some goals next time to get him back in Church. We will see! We have been doing some work from the area book and we will also be visiting some people from it this week! Hopefully we can make them investigators again, it would be awesome!

This week I finished Jesus the Christ for the first time in my life. That was a pretty powerful experience. As I read the last paragraph of the book I was so deeply touched by the spirit. I immediately went and prayed when I had finished and I thanked God for his goodness in sending a Savior. I would say that my testimony of the Savior of mankind was greatly strengthened by the words of James E. Talmage. I know that Jesus is the Christ and that He has overcome all for us. I know that his love is unfathomable and true. He is our Lord and King. The beginning of this last week I was actually pretty depressed feeling. I just felt like there was a cloud over me all the time. It was actually really hard and I still don't really know why it was there. It was probably the strongest depression I have felt on my mission. I prayed for help and guidance and I found that it did not come until we were at the house of a family of members and they are having some struggles in there lives right now.  When we were at the house I was able to bear testimony about how through Jesus Christ all of our weaknesses and shortcomings, all of our trials and difficulties will be made light and bearable. After I bore testimony I felt the savior make the burdens I had been feeling a lot lighter and more bearable. It was cool! I am truly grateful for His life and example. He truly is Jesus the Christ.

Well, I am really excited for the mission tour this week! That will be so cool! It is going to be one of the most powerful experiences of my mission and I am so excited for it. I will come ready to feast upon the things the spirit teaches me. It will be powerful! Oh, and for good old Captian Pete... I have thoroughly considered it and I am taking your advice... I am taking a Boat to Rome. Hopefully I will be able to see the river shining and stuff, but I don't know how much site seeing I will do during the mission conference haha. Thanks for everything Pete, I loved those summer days at Tahoe! You are awesome!

Well, thanks for everything family and everyone! I love you all! I am glad that this week was a little more mellow than last week, that is always good! Thanks!

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Haha, sounds like a fun week at home... I'm in Italy.

Buongiorno Tutti!

 

Well, to start off, sounds like my family had just a pleasant and peaceful week in Holladay, UT... I am so glad to hear that everything is easy going and free from stress. I am glad Sam didn't get sick or anything and then go to the hospital, and that no big disasters have happened to the school musical at OLY jr, or that some crazy thing happened at OLY high and Dad has to coach baseball or something. That all would just be so crazy if all that, and more, happened in a week... Good thing right... Haha! I have just been in Italy...

 

Well, this week for me has been pretty good! Unfortunately allergies exist here in the Mediterranean also. I have been hit kind of hard this week, so that isn't too fun. A lot of sneezing and stuff. Hopefully it will go away soon. So this week we have had some fun things happen! The investigator of the other Anziani, P*, got baptized! Pretty awesome for the ward here! Also, this week, Anziano Garcia and Anziano Stewart went up to Sassari for some Zone leader exchanges. I stayed in Cagliari with Anziano Durham and we had a nice scambio.  We were able to go do some service for a elderly less active here in the morning and then the rest of the day we had filled with lessons and appointments. It was a nice scambio. It was also kind of strange, we met an American guy who is working as an Architect here and it has been soooooooooo long since I have hear some of those choice English swear words. Always a nice to have your ears hear what it is like back in America.... Haha. He was a very nice man though. We also had a man from Senegal stop us on the street and try to talk to us about Muslimism and stuff. That was interesting. Very nice man, but not very interested in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

It has been a little bit rough this week because we are just having problems finding and retaining investigators. The nice lady that we taught with the G* family, M*, ended up not being as interested as she seems and this week and when we showed up at the Gs* home she left. Kind of sad. We were also able to have another lesson with G*, a nice man from Ghana who we met a few weeks ago. He was invited to be baptized in April, he rejected a specific date but said that if he came to know that it was all true he would be baptized. We have been continuing our less actives work, but unfortunately we are finding more and more wrong addresses and phone numbers. It is kind of hard really. For some reason we are having a really hard time finding people. This week has been good, and the spirit has been in the work, we just have had some difficulties with seeing the success.

 

Anziano Garcia and I did the big spiritual thought for the fireside at the ward last night. It went well and L*, Lc*, and M* came again. It is strange, they reject to take the lessons but still come to our firesides and activities. it is good I guess and each time they enter the Church they have the opportunity to feel the spirit. Mayber later on down the road they will really seriously try to find an answer about the truth. I hope so. This week we also had our English course party and that went well. We watched the movie, Finding Faith in Christ with all the members of English course and they enjoyed it.

 

Well, that is all for this week, I hope all goes better this week! Love you all! Oh, also, I made some Pizza at a members bakery... Pictures are attached.

 

Love,

Anziano Burton

Mi piace Cagliari, ma non mi piace quando sta piovendo...

Buongiorno Tutti!

Sta Piovendo questa settimana! Caspita...

 

This week we have seen some beautiful successes. Yesterday we had a lesson with the G* family (Fratello G* got called as a ward missionary this week, so we are happy that he has a calling in the church again) and during the lesson one of their friends joined us. She was a very nice lady named M*, also from Peru. We ended up explaining to her about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and she was very interested. It was awesome! She wants to hear more about it, so next week we will be meeting again with her and she should be coming to Church. We are really excited about that. Almost the entire lesson yesterday was in Spanish haha, it was really interesting. It was really hard to understand, but I picked up a lot of it at the same time.

After the lesson yesterday we went and knocked on the door of a less active man named A*, it was fortunate because he was home and we were able to leave a spiritual thought with him. It was cool! That is the first time that we have been able to meet with him in like 2 months, so that was a success.
We have been working more on the less active program with visiting different zones of the city and it is going well. We have combined our efforts with some people in the ward and they are helping give us up to date information on where people are and there standing with the church. It has been good. We are going to turn in our ward list to the secretary here to try and get it revised with up to date information. We have also recieved some more referrals from newly reactivated members, so that is awesome! Tomorrow we will meet with one at a primary party, so that will be cool!

Also, this week we had our specialized training, it is like a zone conference, but it is put on my the zone leaders. We do it every other transfer. It was awesome! President gave a great lesson to us and it was great! Also, at the specialized training, I got the permissions to drive in the mission haha. So now I can drive the car here in Cagliari and it will help us with visiting some less actives. That will be cool! I had to do a small drivers test with President and that was scarier than the one I did when I first got my license. It was like the first time in over a year that I have driven...  It went well though and I am all official here.

 

We also visited CS* this week again and that was good! He seems to enjoy having us over, so it is good to be his friend. I hope we can get him back in church soon. Anziano Garcia and I are working well together and it is great! I am happy to be here! Life is good on the island. It has been a little bit cooler week, but it should warm back up again this next week haha. You know that Mediterranean weather... Just sooooooooooooooo difficult. I am gonna attach some pictures from this last week! Hope you enjoy them! Take a nice look at the warm sunlight... There is a picture of Anziano Stewart and I! One of Anziano Garcia at the internet point we go to. Also, I included a picture of Anziano Garcia holding our two books of member information... Unfortunately the big one is the less active info and the small one is the active members... We are working with the big one a lot right now. It is fun though! Well, Love you all! It has been a good week! I am happy out here on the island! Oh, also, on the 19th of March we get to take a boat overnight to Rome for a mission conference!!! That will be soooooooo cool!

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Mi piace questo luogo

Buongiorno!!!

Well, it has been a good week here in Cagliari! Anziano Garcia and I are working hard and it has been awesome! So, this week we started our plan for the less actives here. It has started off really well and we have found some less actives and one let us into his house and we had a nice spiritual thought. It has been going well. Going to the houses of all the less actives in the ward, we have seen that many of the members do not live at their houses any more unfortunately, so hopefully we will be able to clean up the ward list in that way also. This has been frustrating but it has still been going well. One of the less actives we tried to visit was out on his balcony when we walked up and when we rang the intercom he didn't answer and he closed his blinds and everything. Kind of funny. The leaders here have become very interested in this work we are trying to do with the less actives and they are going to begin helping us make these visits. This will be fantastic for the work here, because then we will be able to show the members how to check up on less actives and how to help them. The one man who let us into his house was very nice but said he was not wanting to come to church still. We had some questions prepared and we asked them and it went well. He was able to tell us how he met the missionaries and about how he gained a testimony and other things. We asked him if we could come back to visit him again and he said sure. Little by little we will get him back. 

Cagliari is finally working how it should be. Anziano Durham and Anziano Stewart are doing good and our house here has the spirit. We are seeing good things happening. This transfer inside the house we are trying to speak only in Italian. We will see how this goes haha. Anziano Garcia and I are getting along well and we are really happy with the work we are doing here. Of course it needs to get better always and it will get better. While we go to find these less actives we stop people along the way and it is good. We also plan to get referrals from these less actives. We have found that recently reactivated members give some good referrals. We have received and contacted some referrals this week and that has been good. I haven't really ever received referrals here from many people but with the less actives and recently returning people we are seeing more come out. 

La vita è bella! This week we have our specialized training with President, so that will be fun! Unfortunately the youth that we are trying to work with here are still not making progress and we are going to have to leave them. They aren't interested in the Gospel unfortunately. We are going to be doing a lot of finding this week while we go to search out these less actives.

This week has been a good week of hard work and I feel like I am on the upswing of my mission.  My mind has started getting into a good mode and I feel myself taking off.  It is good.  I am loving la terra Sarda!  It is awesome!  3 Oly guys is pretty sweet!

Well, That is all for today! Hope all is well at home! Also, a shoutout to my little bros, Seth and Jack, BUON COMPLEANNO!!!!! SIETE I MIGLIORI!!!

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

The pictures, Anziano Garcia and I and our favorite Ducati. And me on a bus here. I have been on a lot of buses here…

5 a Cagliari

Buongiorno!!!

 

Well, the call came and it turns out that I will be spending a 5th transfer here at Cagliari with Anziano Garcia! Also, some big news, Anziano Miller is going out of Cagliari to Rome 3 and guess who will be joining us here in Cagliari??? Anziano Stewart from Olympus High School! So that is pretty awesome!!! We will have Anziano Stewart and Anziano Durham as companions and it will be awesome! It is just a nice little high school reunion. So fun! So strange that of all the people to get sent here he is the one but it will be awesome! Also, Anziano Garcia is now Zone Leader and also Anziano Stewart. I am just staying a normal missionary, so that will be fun.

 

Anziano Garcia and I have had a good week. We have been working with the G* family a lot and resolving there different concerns. They are good people. I tried to speak spanish in one of the lessons and it didn't work out so well... But now I realize how far I have actually come in Italian haha. It was kind of cool. We have also been meeting with various families in the ward trying to pick out other less actives that we can visit. On saturday we had a ward missionary day kind of. It was good and we had some lessons set up with less actives and we went with some youth here to go visit them. It was fun! The ward is starting to get better with being involved but still it has a little ways to go. The member I went with on the split was Simone Ibba and that was way cool! He is such an awesome guy! We had a really good time and it is funny because he still teaches like a missionary, but he always turns the invites and stuff to me. It was really funny. It was like doing a little scambio with a zone leader of Milano.

 

Other than that, this week has been pretty good. We had another meeting with L*, Lc*, M* and S* and it went really well. We were able to talk about things and they asked good questions and we cleared up a lot of problems they had and explained why things were a certain way. Simone Ibba helped with the lesson and it was really good. He is like the best ward mission leader ever!

 

This week has been amazing weather here! It feels like the end of May or Early June. I included some pictures of us here in Cagliari. Simone is in one of the pictures, hope you enjoy!

 

Well, there isn't a whole lot to write this week, sorry. I forgot to write down some notes to help me remember what to write when I got to the computer. Just another week, normal, mission life. I am still in Cagliari. Anziano Garcia and I will tear it up this transfer. The mission is flying by. Well, until next week!

 

Ciao!

 

Anziano Burton

Fa un bell tempo qui

Buongiorno tutti!!!

 

Io Spero che state bene!

 

Well, another week down and it has been a nice week. We have had a lot of different things happening here. To start I just want to say that I am happy. It is a good day here in Cagliari! So, this week we had a huge activity that we helped the ward do. It was a talent show! On saturday we did this talent show and it went really well and it was a huge success! We had a lot of people show up and it was really fun! A lot of different talents were done and the Anziani here did a bunch of little skits in between talents. It was great! Also, I played the piano for a talent haha. I played Come Thou Fount and it went really well and it was fun! It was like the first time since being in Junior High that I played in front of a large group of people. I was so nervous going into it for some reason but it turned out to be the best playing that I have ever had. I have included a picture of me and a good friend here from the English Course named S*. We are both sporting our bow ties that we wore for the talent show haha.  Also, I included a picture of So* so that all of you could see him, he is an awesome guy and is doing great! The other picture is me and the other Anziani eating this thing called a Pandoro. We modified it and put nutella inside to add to the taste combined with the powder sugar on the outside. It was soooooooooooo goooooooood... and super healthy.

 

The missionaries also did a fireside yesterday and that went really well! There was a nice spirit and I learned some things from what we talked about. Also, yesterday the bishopric thanked us privately and publicly for the work that we have been doing here at Cagliari. The ward as a whole is really happy about the missionaries that have been here recently. They thanked us for the work we have been doing for less actives especially and charged us to keep doing this work to help them out. I have been thinking about my time here in Cagliari. I haven't had any baptisms yet, but I have helped some people begin coming back to Church again and to me this is worth it's weight in gold. Helping someone take the sacrament again is to me as much helping a person being baptized. It has been a beautiful work going on here as of recently.

 

This week we visited the G* family this week and it was awesome! They are great and them coming back to church has been great! Fratello G* has been blessing the sacrament and he is so happy. Also, their daughters have been participating in all of the activities at the church. On Sunday Sorella G* came to Church also. It was great! They have good testimonies. So, during our lessons with them they basically speak only in spanish with some italian words thrown in. They orginally come from Peru. So, Anziano Garcia is right at home but I feel like a greeny not really knowing what they are saying. Interestingly I understand the basics of it, but it is still crazy hard. It is fun though!

 

A* came to church this week again. He likes to come a lot, but he doesn't understand why. So, luckily, at church before he left I finally got his home address and home telephone number so we can go teach him at his house this week. This will make it way easier to teach him even a little bit. We will see how that goes this week. Today we have interviews with President Waddoups and tomorrow we have zone conference. That will be great! Also, this Saturday come transfer calls. Crazy how fast this transfer went. Felt like the blink of an eye. I think I am out, but at the same time I could stay. Anziano Garcia and I are working great together and it has been awesome here in Cagliari! We will see! I'll go where the Lord wants me to go, and do what the Lord wants me to do. I have been feeling the spirit really strongly this week. I have been focusing a little on reading Jesus the Christ and it is incredible! It is opening up my mind so much. I have been feeling a lot more love for people and for just being here. It has been great! I am happy! Well, until next week! Transfer calls!!! Love you all!

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Più freddo

Buongiorno Tutti!

Tutto bene qua a Cagliari!

 

This week has gone by pretty well. It hasn't been perfect but it has been very good. We had a couple of little issues come up here and there with our investigators but at the same time we had some good things happen also. So, on Saturday we did another scambio and I went with Anziano Durham and it went really well! We had a good time even though most of the time we were doing street finding. I learned some good things from him and it was awesome! He is a good missionary. This week has gone really well. All four Anziani here are getting along well and it is good. We are all enjoying being here. The work isn't easy, but it is doable and we are learning every day. This week we weren't able to meet with A* because he didn't show up to the lesson, so that was a bumber, but he did show up to Church and we were able to talk with him a little bit there. Hopefully he will come to his lesson this week. He has a lot of kind of strange out there questions and he is kind of out of it and stuff a lot, but I have a feeling that there is something I need to help him with or that I will learn from him. We will see what happens this week.

 

As for less actives, we were able to meet with E*, and that went really well, we simply taught him the Restoration and he enjoyed it. We also were able to meet with another named An* and that was good. I wasn't there, because it was on the scambio day, but I heard it went well. We also met a lot of Africans in a house and we are going to begin teaching them the restored gospel this week. That will be fun! This week we found out that G* the man from English Course has had the Book of Mormon on his bed side table and he has been reading a little bit here and there. We commited him to really start reading it from start to finish and he agreed, so that will be really cool! We will meet with him again this week and see how it is going and see if we can get him progressing on the road to baptism. 

This week, I also did something awesome... I finished the Book of Mormon for the fourth time I think. That was pretty cool! It is such a beautiful book and the ending is incredible! Those last few chapters in Moroni are just so packed full of amazing and precious things. It has been a good reading that I have had over the last 2 transfers. I have learned a lot from within the book's amazing pages. I am happy with that. It has added a large boost of the spirit every day and has helped me to overcome challenges and concerns. I am grateful for the beautiful simplicity of the Book of Mormon and how it applies to us all. It is a precious book and I am grateful for it.

Anziano Garcia is awesome! He is a good missionary, we are both trying to find out ways that we can make our finding better, because we haven't been finding very many people as of recently on the street or anywhere. He has a great desire to find investigators to teach and it is helping the work here. We have begun setting some simple goals to talk with people on the street and we will be making those goals bigger as we go on. I am grateful to be serving with him. He is a good companion and he has a lot to add to the work here in Cagliari.

 

Well, this week is the big week, on the 6th I believe I officially hit my year mark... Pretty strange... It went by way fast. It is a good time to relook at everything that has occured and to look forward to how I can make my big second year even better. It will be awesome! Italy is great! I love it! Italian is the best language! It is an honor to be here right now, I hope that I can honor my call and serve to the best of my ability this next year. Well, thanks for everything and all the love and support that I have recieved from all of you back home! Love you all! You are great!

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Ciao Ciao Ciao Ciao Ciao

Buongiorno!!!

 

Another week has gone by and it has been a good week! Anziano Garcia and I are getting along well and it is awesome here! This week we were able to meet our goal with member present lessons so that is really good. We still need to boost our new investigators though and this week we are going to be focusing more on that number and how we can get it up. This will probably mean a lot of finding on the street or house to house, but it will be awesome. We are going to see how it goes. We are also going to try and start a quit smoking course to see if we can get some people in the Church from that. We still need to talk with all the missionaries here and see how we can get that going, so tomorrow at DDM we will bring that up. This week we also had some lessons with less actives and that went really well. We are proud to report that one of the less actives that we have been working with for the past month, S*, has now received a calling in the church again and he is now considered active. That is a good success that we have seen this week. We have also begun some other work with less actives here who came back to church because the Stake President visited. That will be good. Cagliari as a ward is starting to look really good and starting to work and function a lot better by itself. It has been good to see this change. 

Anziano Garcia is way fun and it is good being with a companion who always has a sense of humor. We are getting along well. So, about him. His family lives in Rome and they are active and awesome apparently. Some of the missionaries here in Sardegna have served in Rome and have visited his family and stuff. Pretty funny. He is District leader and he is a good guy. We are both on the same page and it has been great! It is nice having someone to answer my questions about Italian. He helps a ton. He helps me understand the grammar and everything. It is a good time here. All the Anziani in Cagliari are getting along and we are all working well together. Anziano Miller and Anziano Durham are working hard and doing some great work. It is good to be here right now. We are all happy.

 

This week A* came to Church again. He is nice and has been reading the Book of Mormon a little. We have had some member present lessons with him and that has been cool because S* has been the member helping us. He is a little bit hard to teach because we will try to explain something and then he will go off asking a random question about something. Apparently, he has read a lot of books in his life and he has a ton of just random knowledge. It is interesting. He has a good desire to change still and hopefully he will take the steps and start going on the road of change.

 

So with L*, C*, and M* unfortunately we had a bumpy week. We weren't able to find a time to meet with them and that was a bumber first of all. Second of all, at English Course M* gave us his Book of Mormon back and said that he had his religion. That was really awkward and sad. L* and C* have been acting a little strange also recently. So... we will just see how this week goes and see if we can find some stuff out.

 

The stake President visited this week and that was cool. He is a good guy. He did a little exchange with the other Anziani and it went well. He is nice. We also met an Athiest guy on the street who was really nice and said he can meet with us in a week. He gave us his business card and showed us where his business was. He seems like a promising contact. Anziano Durham and I did a little exchange this week and it went well. He is a good guy and a hard worker. It is so cool having a guy from Holladay Ut to talk to. It is awesome.

 

Well, I hope that my cousin Elizabeth has an awesome time in the MTC coming up... That will be awesome for her! Great choice of going on the mission, you will love it!!!

 

Overall a good week, no complaints.

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Anziano Garcia è cool

Buon Giorno!!!

Italia è bella!

 

It has been a pretty awesome week this week! Anziano Garcia and I are getting along great and we are having some good successes. This week we were able to meet with some less actives and teach them spiritual thoughts. It was very simple but it turned out great because on Sunday the three less actives that we have been in contact with came to Church! We were really excited about that. We also had a man from English Course come to Church and he is an investigator who we will be meeting again this week. His name is A* and it was cool because in the lesson he told us how he wants change. He doesn't want to be dragged down by his past anymore. We are looking forward to teaching him again this week. It is going to be so great seeing the Gospel of Jesus Christ help him.

One of the less actives we met, S* is working to recieve the priesthood and he is determined to progress forward and remain active in the church. He has a powerful desire to keep going and it is fun working with him. We met with E* another less active and it was cool because his nephew, who is a member, was there also. It was a good lesson because the nephew helped him see the importance of coming to Church and partaking of the sacrament. When we saw E* on Sunday he kept saying thanks and he was so much more happy. It was so cool to see the light begin to kindle again in his eyes. That was awesome to see here! We also visited a less active member named M* this week and we had a cool spiritual thought with him and his family (who are all active). It went really well and the dad thanked us afterwards.
Also, this last week we had a really good lesson with L*, C*, M*, and S* from English Course. We taught them the Plan of Salvation because of the questions L* has had while reading the Book of Mormon. It went really well but we weren't able to finish in just one visit so we have another appointment for this week. That will be awesome! We are hoping to have one of our youth in the ward help us out with the lesson. Right now we are working hard to get some new investigators. We haven't had a lot of success on the street, so we are trying to think of some new ways to approach people. We went into a park close to our house and we found this lady named LL* from London. She just recently moved here to Italy and we gave her a Book of Mormon and taught the Restoration. We are hoping to go back to the park to meet her again this week to teach her more.

This week we also did a District Blitz up in Oristano. This worked out really well and we did a lot of finding and found some people who may be interested in the Church. Anziano Garcia is a good guy, we are getting along well. He is really nice and we are going to see some good work here. I have been reading in the Book of Mormon a lot recently and I read about Nephi praying on his tower in his garden. It reminded me that maybe we should also try out a Mostra this week or in the weeks to come. We will see what happens. During my studies of the Book of Mormon I have been getting such a powerful spirit about the message we are sharing. It is an incredible honor to spread this message. This week was a big step up from the last few weeks we have been having and I know that this next week will be equally good and even better. Things are great here!

A special shout out to my Dad for being awesome! Happy Birthday this week! Love you!!!

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Anziano Garcia è arrivato

Buon Giorno!!!

 

Well, Anziano Garcia is awesome! It is going to be a good transfer and I really feel like we are going to see some good things come to Cagliari. This week we had some different things going on because of transfers, but we were able to teach some less actives, S* and E*, and that went really well. We saw S* at Church the day after we taught him and E* is feeling quite a bit better about coming once again, but there are still some hills to get over. We will be meeting with them both again this week.

 

So this week we were able to meet once again with L* and C* and all of there friends. We taught them about Justice and Mercy in the plan of Salvation and it was way cool because after L* and C* had some really good insights and questions. We are going to teach them the full Plan of Salvation this Wednesday before English Course and we hope that it all goes well. Right now they are the best people we have been working with lately. They haven't been able to come to Church but this week we hope to get a baptismal date with both of them and actually start seeing them progress. They are good people and have sincere interest the things we believe. Everyone right now in Cagliari is trying to get the work moving more, but it is difficult. We are going to try some new things out to see if we can boost it. Hopefully something works. 

It has been hard having such low numbers as of recently and I have felt a little worn out, but I know that Anziano Garcia will be a huge help to the work here. He has a lot of energy and it is good. He has been helping me a lot with Italian already and it is really good to have him as a companion. We are planning out a good language study plan that we can both work together on. It will be really good. I really hope to learn a lot from him this transfer and I am excited to see my italian take leaps and bounds. It will be great!

 

Yesterday we went out with the other Anziani to a place called Villasimus to visit an ex investigator. It went really well and on the drive we were able to see some incredible views of the Mediterranean. It was cool. Yesterday evening we also had a fireside and L* and C* came to it and really enjoyed it. It was really cool! Well, Thats all for this week. Life is good in Italy, the work is gonna go great by the end of this transfer!

I am excited for the future of this area and I think that we will see good things come from Cagliari.

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Festa

Hey! Sorry, this week I can't write an email very long. It is an Italian holiday today and the internet points are almost all shut down... So, just for most important news, I am still in Cagliari!!! With a new companion!!! An Italian!!! His name is Anziano Garcia and I have heard that he is from Argentina originally, but he has lived in Italy for like 12 years or something, so basically Italian. I will pick him up Wednesday, I am so excited for this! It will be great! Anziano Davids is headed to Syracuse, and he is very excited! That is most news this week, sorry for the short email! Love you all!

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Buon Giorno Tutti! Merry Christmas!

Buon Giorno Tutti!

This week has been nice! It was a good week and Christmas and everything went really well! It was great! On Christmas day in the evening we were able to go eat with an english teacher at a school near here and we also had a good time opening up some presents between the missionaries here in Cagliari. It has been a nice week. On the 26th we went to a members house and had lunch and watched the movie Tarzan. That was pretty cool to watch a movie and it brought back some great memories from my childhood. The other movie we watched was called like the Five Guardians or something. It was a good movie. It was also awesome being able to talk to you all family! I loved that! I am glad you are all doing well! It was really cool because I got to bear my testimony in Italian to you and we also had a family prayer, thanks for that! It was a really cool thing and it helped remind me of the awesome people I've got at my back cheering for me while I am out here. It is great!

Here is us at the english teachers house eating some treats Christmas evening.

Something cool that happened this week was that we had a guy from English Course come to Church and he accepted to take the lessons and so we will be starting to work with him. Also, Yesterday we met with some Youth from english course and we talked with them About the Book of Mormon. They had some really good questions about it and it turns out that one of them has already started to read it and try and understand it. It was cool! These people right now have the highest potential right now, and things are looking up. We will see how this week goes and what happens.

Last PDay before Christmas we hiked (More like ran up) Devils Saddle again, that went well! I got some fun pictures at the top!

Well, overall, this week was pretty awesome! Sorry if this is a little short. Overall, really a good Christmas week, felt similar to what it is like at home, so I can't complain. Thanks for everything! You are all awesome!

Sincerely,
Anziano Burton

Un bell tempo qua

Buon Giorno Tutti!

 

Well, another week down in Calgiari. It is beautiful weather here and just feels like we are now starting to get into fall even though we are almost at Christmas. This week some fun things have happened. The first and most interesting story that I think you will want to hear is about us and a Catholic Priest...

 

So, this week we had the idea to try and go to the Catholic churchs in the city and see if we could find any service that we could do with them during the holidays. So, the first church that we went to was a big church called Bon Aria. It is the church that the Pope visited when he was in Cagliari. It is huge and really cool. So, we went inside and we started looking for the office where we could talk with someone about doing some service. We waited in line to talk with a priest and all the other people in the line were going to go and confess to the priest, so that was kind of interesting. Everyone was looking at us like we were so strange. Just two Mormon missionaries in the Catholic Church. We finally got in and talked to an elderly priest and he was very nice and went and made a phone call to call down the head guy of Bon Aria. He told us to just wait a few moments and then the priest would be there. So we waited and then this older priest dressed in white robes came down and began to talk with us. He invited us into his office and we went in and talked with him. He was very nice and warm to us. He said that they didn't have any specific service that we could do together but we exchanged numbers and said that we would stay in contact. He then began asking us about the Church and what the differences were between us. We kind of gave him a brief overview of the restoration and the Book of Mormon. It was really cool. We handed him a Book of Mormon and he started flipping through the pages and then asked us if that book was his. We said sure and he said thanks and we said our goodbyes. He was very nice and everything. Outside of the church Anziano Davids and I were pretty excited because we had just placed a Book of Mormon with the head guy of Bon Aria. Kind of a cool thing to think about. I attached a picture of Anziano Davids and I outside of the Church right after this experience. Pretty cool story that I get to tell.

 

Well, other than that, this week has been pretty mellow. We got a new investigator named S* from English Course. He is really nice and he is interested in the differences between us and the Catholic Church. We have been also trying to set up a lot of appointments with members but it has been kind of hard. Because we don't have any great investigators right now, we are probably going to refocus on the less active work that we can do here. We will see what happens.

 

This week I also did a little scambio with Anziano Mendez from Oristano. He is a good guy and he is brand new in the mission. It was fun to go out with him and get to talk with him about everything. He is from Ogden Utah. We had a good scambio and things went really well. I will include a picture. Also, the other picture is Fratello Deplano, the second councelor in the bishopric here, a really awesome member and his family... Other than that, this week has been pretty normal. Not a lot to say. We are getting excited for Christmas here though. That will be great!

 

You are all the best!

 

Sincerely,

 

Anziano Burton

é quasi Natale

Buon Giorno Tutti!

è un bellissimo giorno qua a Cagliari!

 

It has been a good week in Cagliari, we are still seeing a lot of little successes and it is very good still. Our numbers this week turned out better and we are starting to see a rise in things. It has been still a little hard because we have not been able to get any of our investigators to church. That was a little bit hard. We are working hard though and we are really trying to exhort our investigators to come to church and see the benefits of giving the Sabbath day to the Lord. It is hard, but it will work out I am sure.

This week I did a scambio with Anziano Durham while the other Anziani went to Oristano for another Scambio. It was really good and I learned a lot from him. Anziano Durham is a good missionary and he will do some great things on his mission. We were able to teach a lesson to C* who hasn't wanted to pray to find an answer and he has been also stuggling with coming to Church. It was cool because we got in there and bore powerful testimony and answered his questions. The spirit was strong when we were speaking and we know that he felt it also. Unfortunately he still seemed skeptical to everything and the next day he did not come to church. We are thinking that we may have to drop him because he is not making progress and he is not willing to progress. He is also a pretty long bus ride out and when we go to visit him it takes a good chunk out of one of our evenings in the week. That is kind of a bumber.
This week we met with our Buddhist friends from English Course who took us out to lunch a few weeks ago. We taught them the first lesson and it went well. S* said that he would try to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately though, M* seemed a lot more hesitant to say a prayer. We are a little bit worried about how that will work out. She really seemed against praying. Hopefully it works out alright though.

This week the only speaking Italian outside of the house has been going pretty well. We have been working really hard to do it and it is difficult but I think it is helping a little. It is cool to have the entire zone in on this and working to achieve it. I think that it will be a really powerful thing. It is awesome! It is cool to see the city of Cagliari getting ready for Christmas. All of the stores are starting to get up and going and Natale is definitely in the air. It is a great time to be declaring to people the good news of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is so great being out on the street and talking with people about Christ every day. It has been pretty brisk still, but I am starting to get a little more use to the chilly humid weather. It is not too bad compared to what Utah is at right now... Sounds really fun over there! Have fun shoveling your driveways and stuff, I will just look out over the Mediterranean Sea and think of you.

 

Sorry, this is a shorter email, and I don't have pictures this week, next week I will include some good ones! Love you all!

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

 

Sta Piovendo

Buon Giorno Tutti!!!

Well, we have been getting some nice rain the last two days in Cagliari. Things are going pretty well here, I am really enjoying being here! It has been a pretty rough week for seeing success but at the same time we have felt a lot of little successes each day. Anziano Davids and I are working to get our current investigators to progress but it has been a little bit hard. They have been telling us that they will come to church and then they don't come. We feel like we are at a stand still almost. It is really hard because it feels like everything should just be taking off and going great here. Like I feel so strongly that the people are ready to hear this message but we are just hitting walls that is making the work hard. We have been putting a good effort into the work that we are doing and we just aren't seeing the successes yet.

Here are some of the Sardo guys that we ate with this week. B* is in the middle.

We had a great meeting with our investigator Gg* this week and we taught the Restoration and he honestly is searching the truth. The problem is that he didn't come to Church the next day and so that was a bumber. The P* family has been gone for quite a while and it is worrying us. They aren't answering the phone anymore and it is really hard to talk with them. We don't know what happened. G* didn't come to church this week but he called us after and told us that he was sick, hopefully we will get him coming back to church again.

On Saturday we went out to lunch with our investigator B*. It was cool, we went out into the country side near Cagliari and ate a traditional Sardo meal. It was all food from Sardegna. It was really good and enjoyed it a lot, but it was kind of strange. All of the guys we were eating with, abot 10 or so, were all Sardi and they were really quiet. Bruno tried to get us to drink wine, beer, coffee and some other strange looking alcoholic drink. We had to politely tell him no and explain about the Word of Wisdom. That was fun to do. After we explained, all of the Sardi men just kind of stared at us like we didn't know what we were missing. It was really a very strange lunch.

Cagliari's main street at sunset. A nice but chilly day.

We had our English course graduation ceremony and that went really well this week. I was one of the "Hosts" and so I got to present the awards to the students. They were very awesome. We had M* P* actually get up and basically bear a testimony of our work. That makes it all the harder that now 6 days later we can't get a hold of them at all. Anziano Davids and I are going to try really harvesting our English course this week and this transfer. There are still a lot of people in it who have not been invited to hear the Gospel message. We really hope to see success and we know that it is just around the corner.

Anziano Durham has accustomed to Cagliari really well and he is awesome! He will do a lot of good here and I know that he will be a hard worker and will help out a lot. We got a new Ward Mission Leader this week also. With the new bishopric and Fratello L* becoming the Elder's Quorum President our new Ward Mission Leader is Fratello S* I*. He returned from the Italy Milan mission just 4 days ago, and we are excited! It will be great working with him in the missionary work! He was a zone leader up in Milan and he will have some geat insites for the work. It is going to be a great week I am sure!

As a zone, the island of Sardegna has decided to only ever speak Italian outside of the house for the month of December. I really feel like this will be a huge boost to the work here on the island. I am also excited because I am hoping it will help my language skills. It has been hard this week because again I put a lot of good study time into Italian and when I get out and about I have a hard time hearing and speaking it. I am just not quite where I want to be. I am really hoping that with this new goal by our zone I start picking it up better.

Well, that's about it for today, the week hasn't felt to bad, we have had a lot of good little successes, but just not the best key indicators have shown up. Hope all is well at home! You are the best!

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

Here is our previous district before transfers, now we are missing Anziani Rasumussen and Loerstcher... top right elder and bottom left elder.

Ancora sono a Cagliari

Buon Giorno Tutti!

Well, I am staying in Cagliari! It will be great! I am still with Anziano Davids and no real big changes for us. As for Anziano Miller there is a pretty interesting change from transfers... He will be getting a new companion and it is Anziano Durham from Holladay UT... Pretty stinking cool! It is going to be so much fun serving in the same city as Anziano Durham! Pretty strange that it would happen because we knew each other before the mission and stuff, played sports and all that. It will be really cool! I am excited!

 

This week has been pretty good, we did two scambios this week so it kind of filled it and it made it a little different for me. I went with Anziano Miller at the beginning of the week and that went really well. I learned some good things from the scambio and it was fun doing a scambio with the zone leader. The second scambio I did was with Anziano Sergent up in Oristano. It went really well and we did some good finding in the city. That was more or less my week this week. Pretty busy with travel and stuff.

This week we fortunately saw some good successes with finding people to teach. We have found three people in three different methods of finding and we are very excited to be teaching them this week. It will be great. One of them is from English course, one we met at the internet cafe last Monday, and the other was found in a park in Cagliari. It has been a good week. Unfortunately we didn't have any investigators come to church yesterday so that was kind of a bumber. Everyone we invited had excuses and it was kind of rough. We are really hoping to have better success with that this next week and we also think that we will be able to set some baptismal dates this week.  One of our new investigators named G* is really nice. He is just a young guy who believes in Christ and wants to hear what we have to say.

 

This is Anziano Leortcher who is leaving this transfer because Anziano Durham is coming. This is a tower that is older than the time of Christ I think…

Oh, yesterday we had the stake presidency from Rome come and officially organize us as a Ward! That is pretty exciting! Our new bishop is awesome, his name is Vescovo (Bishop) C*. I feel like with the new leaders in the ward we are going to see the fire really catch in Cagliari! It will be fantastic to be here for that! I love it here!

This week I have really been working on studying Italian. It is really hard and it feels like it isn't getting anywhere when I study, but I am sure it will pay off in the end. Well, sorry I don't have a lot to write this week. It has been a little bit different because of the scambios and stuff. I have been traveling to different places and it has made me a little tired this week.

 

Well, until next week! Thanks for everything!

 

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton

 

Anziano Sergent with an member from Oristano.

Fa Freddo

Buon Giorno Tutti!

Well, another week here in Cagliari!

It has been kind of a rough week as far as our numbers have been, but things are starting to look up right now. We have had a lot of lessons and plans fall through this week, but we have also seen some nice little successes.

So, some successes that we had this week. Last night we were finally able to track down our lost investigator G*. We stopped by his home and for the first time in like two weeks he was actually there. We talked with him for a long while and things went well... We are working with him again though and that is good…. We will see what comes this week for him. We have an appointment set up with him on Tuesday. Another great success that we saw was just out finding. I was on a scambio with Anziano Loertcher and it was going really well. We were having a good time and it was a great scambio. He is an awesome missionary and he will do great things on his mission. Anyway, we were out finding and we stopped a guy who was really nice. He told us how the missionaries used to come to his parents house and how when they would come his parents would always be smiling. He said how it was cool that they did that when we came. We talked to him for a while and he gave us his address and phone number, so we will see what happens there. We are pretty excited for that!

This week it has started to get pretty stinking cold also. Like it went from kind of warm and uncomfortable last week to really chilly this week. We have started wearing scarves and things around to protect us from the cold air touching our necks. I don't know if I have said this but all Italians believe that it is really bad if cold air touches your neck. They say it can like kill you and make you really sick and all other stuff. That is the reason they all wear scarves. It is really funny. If we don't go out with Scarves on they get really worried for our health. So, we have been wearing those recently. The nights have gotten dramatically cooler. It feels like we skipped fall and went from summer to winter. It is kind of strange. Today in fact it is really windy and cool temperatures. We had some sleet earlier this morning. We are kind of saying goodbye to the warm Mediterranean and hello to the cold stormy weather. Oh well, it is a nice change from the heat and I like the cool a lot more... Well, this week has overall been pretty basic other than what I have already said. We had Zone Conference and that went really well! I love President Waddoups, he is an awesome President. You can really feel that he loves you. That is the kind of vibe you get from him. He is great! Life here is going well and I can't complain to much. Every other day we get out and run in the morning and that is awesome! The food is amazing, the language is beautiful, the people are fun. Welcome to Italy, the best place ever. I am happy here! Until next week! It is crazy, we are already at transfer calls this next Saturday, we will see what happens with everything! I hope I stay here for a while longer!

Sincerely,

Anziano Burton